Our Hotel Is Open for Business as Usual

Kwon Do-heon pressed his throbbing temple and looked around.

"So where the hell even is this."

In his stale, dry mouth lingered a raw, earthy smell together with the scent of damp dust.

'A very old-fashioned sort of corridor… so, some kind of mansion?'

It looked like the twisted corridor of a huge old manor.

Why 'twisted,' you ask—because there wasn't a single sound spot anywhere. Every law of the space had gone abnormally awry.

"This damn hotel really is loathsome."

At any rate, this too had to be the 'hotel's' doing. Rather than pressing on down the corridor that ran up toward the ceiling, Kwon Do-heon tried opening the nearest door.

"Uh…."

"……."

Rattle.

He gave it a pointless little push.

"…It won't move…."

It seemed to be fixed in place.

'Feels like I've walked into a miniature dollhouse.'

Light was clearly casting a soft glow all around, yet nowhere on the ceiling or the walls could he see a single candlestick. It was as though someone had scraped together a person's distorted memories or unconscious and forced them into shape.

"Ugh."

It gave him gooseflesh.

'If at least Uncle were with me it'd be more bearable, but wandering around alone is fucking terrifying….'

A strange ceiling came into view. Dark wooden molding and a fairly ornate chandelier. Passable enough, but the closer he looked, the more an odd wrongness welled up.

'Wasn't there a situation kind of like this when I was going around the hotel too?'

It was a far bigger mess than that, but in being a bizarre space with no visible end, it looked similar.

"……."

In the end, amid the endless stillness, a thoroughly frightened Kwon Do-heon crouched down in some corner.

'Somebody help me.'

Uncle.

Mr. Policeman.

General Manager, sir.

'Please, somebody come find me.'

Kwon Do-heon screwed up his face as if about to cry.

If Seome were here, he could at least ask which way the path lay, but that person had been taken away long ago. Abducted, and there was no way to know whether she was alive or dead.

'Why did I even come here in the first place. I remember, roughly, getting swept up in the White Crow's rampage and firing my gun half out of my mind, but….'

At some point his head had gone dizzy with a lurch, and when he came to, he was here.

'I feel like they said when you're lost you're supposed to stay put until a guardian comes.'

It wasn't that there was nothing to see—it was that everything existed so scattered and jumbled that he couldn't see it well. It probably felt like stacking layer upon layer of cellophane, colored fog, and hanji paper.

"Ha, fuck, where the hell am I even supposed to go now…."

It was then.

"Kong."

"Kong-kong."

The shadow cast over the sodden carpet beneath his feet rippled.

"Uh, uh-uh?"

Pop, pop-pop!

Out of it sprang two little balls of black fur.

"Foxes…?"

They were small foxes, each with something like a bright-red scarf tied on.

"Is the little one lost?"

"Is the little one hurt?"

And in old courtly speech, no less.

"Ah, no… no, I'm not hurt… I think?"

"The little one is lost."

"A stray child, become."

"Put it that way and what does that make me, a high school junior?"

Bewilderment outweighed any fear or wariness.

Their utterly harmless looks had a lot to do with it, but Kwon Do-heon could tell without much trouble. These were the little ones who, some days back, had helped snap him to his senses so the 'Lover of Dawn' wouldn't drag him off.

"So, uh…."

"The fox will guide."

"Follow, little one."

"Come on, hang on."

He'd been about to thank them, you see.

'…Anyway, do they know the way? These little ones?'

Black as they were, didn't they look somehow numinous?

'And it's not as if talking foxes are a common thing.'

For a moment the fox-sister of the old folktale came to mind and raised gooseflesh down his spine, but in the end Kwon Do-heon set off after the two foxes. In his current situation, he had no choice.

"Together, let's go together, please."

"The little one is slow."

"Very weak, you are…."

"Wow, this is really unfair."

Whatever they might think looking at him, this was a body that had never once slipped below Grade 1 on the PAPS (Physical Activity Promotion System).

But the foxes paid him no mind, wagging their tails and dashing off ahead down the corridor. Their pace was neither too fast nor too slow. They were probably the only ones here who knew the way.

'Can't be helped.'

Kwon Do-heon killed the sound of his footsteps and chased after the foxes.

How many times did they cut through the geometrically twisted passages, following the foxes? At last a room appeared, red light leaking through the crack of its door. This was a phenomenon he was seeing for the first time.

"Ah, is it maybe through here…?"

"Kong."

"Kong-kong."

"You can talk like people, so why do you keep doing this."

But going in felt far too unnerving.

'The mood is really….'

Enough to smother the corridor's cool air in an instant, there throbbed the stench of rotting earth and raw blood, and, as if to forcibly mask it all, the sweet yet acrid toxin of poppies.

"Kong?"

"Kong-kong."

"……."

At their look, as if asking 'why aren't you going in,' Kwon Do-heon crept up to the door with a reluctant face. Clicking his tongue low, he cautiously peered through the crack.

There he could see a woman seated before a mirror.

"……?"

Wait, that—

'It's all white….'

A woman with silver-white hair like moonlight cascading down like a waterfall, baring a nape so pale and translucent from never having seen sunlight.

'What—I never thought that far.'

Her frail body looked, in this ghastly room, especially like a piece of craftwork perilously close to shattering. The eyes glimpsed faintly in the mirror wavered coolly, like a red moon in a night sky.

'I said I never thought that far.'

Overcome with revulsion, he pulled his head back. It wasn't rare for something in this hotel to forcibly inject 'thoughts' and 'judgments,' so what made Kwon Do-heon shudder now was a sense of impending danger.

"Kong?"

"Kong-kong?"

'Fuck, am I losing it.'

It was the black mage who had created the classical Labyrinth 'White Crow'—the 'lady.'

'I run into the final boss right off the bat?'

Swallowing a scream, Kwon Do-heon instinctively hooked a finger over the trigger. A strong chill and gooseflesh crawled up his spine.

He hurriedly backed away and huddled to hide among the strange chests of drawers—whether melted onto the wall or grown out of it, he couldn't tell.

"What—what's going on. Weren't you supposed to be guiding me?"

"Kong?"

"Kong-kong!"

"Say it in human words…!"

Meaning, was that path an escape route or a road to the netherworld?

'I'm screwed. Uncle told me not to just go trusting any old thing.'

But regret lasted only a moment; soon a dull noise came from between the chests.

Shhhk….

"……."

Shhk.

The cool friction sound you'd hear when cloth met cloth. In this situation, only one being could make such a sound. The 'lady' who'd been sitting before the mirror was coming this way.

'Fuck!!'

Somebody help!!

'Kwon Do-heon's going to die…!!'

Swallowing even the sound of his breath, Kwon Do-heon fought to hold on to his reason. But the trembling of his body was beyond his control. If only Seome had been here—if only his uncle, at least, had been here!

It would have been less terrifying than this!!

'Please don't see me, don't see me, please…!'

He chanted it like a sutra, but sadly—

"……."

"……."

She stopped short.

A bright-red gaze fell upon Kwon Do-heon.

The witch merely stared at him quietly, without expression.

***

When the 'Guest Without Taste' had finally thrown his tantrum.

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo had to think a little.

'The gist of the Guest Without Taste's spite is obvious.'

[Yes.]

'In the end it's, don't work alone—make the other bastards earn their keep too.'

[Correct.]

'So he's lost his mind after all.'

To stage a protest this flamboyant, of all things.

Judged strictly as a system administrator, this situation was no more than a slight error. The grand banquet hall's meticulous structure protected the Human Guests in perfect safety. The vampire staff would block any additional outside drafts.

Only Kwon Do-heon, one person, had been dragged into the 'Lover of Dawn's' mindscape.

'A mindscape is, quite literally, a mindscape—so now that it's become a game borrowing the hotel's format, there's actually no real chance of Kwon Do-heon being hurt or killed, but….'

For the humans left behind, how absurd it must feel.

'I did want to at least give them one word of explanation that it wasn't such a dangerous situation.'

"No?"

"That's right."

Trapped in the pitch-black void of 'loading,' Lee Yeon-woo continued.

"There was no time to spare."

Explaining would have been hard even with time to spare; there was no way he could leave Kwon Do-heon abandoned in the 'Lover of Dawn's' dizzying mindscape. Above all, he'd had to come inside himself before the mindscape's door shut.

"Leave it mishandled and there's no telling what would become of Kwon Do-heon among the untuned fragments of the unconscious…."

"Erase his memory?"

"How about we leave that method for the very last resort."

Lee Yeon-woo muttered with a troubled face.

"Even so, laying hands on another's memory isn't healthy, even by mutual consent."

He couldn't do now, all the same, what he'd already done any number of times as 'General Manager Mode.' If the person strongly wished it there'd be room to talk it over further, but it was a distasteful thing for Lee Yeon-woo.

Outrunning the speed of the crumbling mindscape, he swiftly scanned the interior of the 'Lover of Dawn.' Into a world that had been nothing but pitch-black, countless 'spaces of memory' spread open with a whoosh.

"……."

There was no end in sight.

"Well, it would keep making this mindscape world ever since it became a Labyrinth, so by now it's near-infinite. In practical terms it's no different from a universe that keeps expanding."

"Coco vouches."

"So this is how it's been enjoying its 'eternal love.'"

"Love? No?"

"That's how it looks to me as well."

This was obsession.

"Its memory has blurred, and yet it clings even to its unconscious to conjure up its 'reminiscences.'"

Presently, into his sight came the 'manor,' tangled like a vast maze.

"The 'Lover of Dawn' in the mindscape, taking Margareta's form, doesn't seem sane either."

"Danger! Danger!"

"A 'guide' will be needed after all."

"NPC?"

"Yes, objectively speaking, that's exactly what it'll be."

It felt strange that this was turning into more of a full-fledged 'game' than he'd expected.

'Certainly no one will be hurt or killed. That part is rather convenient.'

And so Lee Yeon-woo decided to intervene in the 'mini-game' the 'Guest Without Taste' had prepared, and help Kwon Do-heon, the sole user. Except, in this case, Lee Yeon-woo would have to become part of the 'mini-game' himself.

Simply put, he had to possess something. Some creature in there, or a doll, or an empty human-shaped whatever….

"…Ha…."

"Hello?"

"Not especially hello."

Lee Yeon-woo had few options.

"Thanks to this, at my age I'm trying all sorts of ridiculous things."

That old vampire had surely foreseen it all, right up to here.

***

And so the 'lady' opened her mouth.

"Kwon Do-heon."

"…Uh, uh-uh…?"

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

The words that flowed out belonged to this hotel's General Manager, Lee Yeon-woo.

***

Lee Yeon-woo presently smiled gently and held out a hand.

"Hiding there does you no good—the visual synchronization is already complete. Don't stay in such an uncomfortable position; come out from behind the chest."

It was a thin, soft woman's voice, but the tone was uncannily familiar.

"Wh—what, why, what, how."

"Did you injure your head?"

"General Manager, sir?"

"Yes, it's me."

Crawling out awkwardly from behind the chest, Kwon Do-heon looked up blankly at the silver-haired woman standing before him.

"……."

"If there's something you'd like to say, feel free."

"No, uh, that."

Even though it was the shell of a witch with white skin, red eyes, and an unmistakable air of sickly frailty, he felt no wrongness. It overlapped heavily with the figure he'd seen on the grand banquet hall's stage.

"Were you, by any chance, a witch in a past li—?"

"With a single question you manage to offend a great many people. A truly astonishing way of speaking."

"Why is there no sense of wrongness at all?"

"You've been jabbing at some rather painful spots for a while now—seem to have no awareness of it."

"Why do you look like that??"

At Kwon Do-heon's aghast question, Lee Yeon-woo laughed, hiding the back of a hand with the 'lady's' slender fingers. It was a gesture he'd shown now and then as 'General Manager' too. The expression of someone not laughing because anything was funny.

"I'd just ask you to understand it's not my personal taste. But since it's come to this, I simply had no other option."

"What were the other options?"

"There'd have been the innocent foxes, or a doll's body that's hard to communicate with."

"So the 'lady' is fine, then?"

"If you've wandered this space at all, you'll know…."

Lee Yeon-woo gestured at the surroundings.

"This is the 'Lover of Dawn's' mindscape world. Simply put, a space where her abstracted memories and unconscious take form. This 'lady' is, in effect, nothing more than an illusory doll."

"Ah, I see…."

Nodding, Kwon Do-heon presently took on a reluctant expression.

"So everything else is warped, but only the 'lady' was remembered that vividly? By that monster guest, the 'Lover of Dawn'?"

"Given that even the voice is reproduced, the odds are high."

"That's its own kind of unsettling."

That someone could love a single person this much was nearly a marvel.

"Say, then—are the others all right?"

"To give you the conclusion first: the other guests left in the grand banquet hall are perfectly safe. The 'Guest Without Taste' threw a nasty tantrum and tangled things up a bit, that's all."

"No, what the hell, throwing a tantrum with people's lives on the line. There's no bullshit like that bullshit."

"I agree, but please refrain from cursing."

Anyway,

"Simply put, you can think of this as a small Labyrinth reflecting the 'Lover of Dawn's' mindscape."

"Put it even simpler."

"It's a mini-game to make a boss raid succeed."

"Aha."

Kwon Do-heon nodded. Confirming it, Lee Yeon-woo went on.

"I'd planned to secure the 'lady's' traces and end this gently, but with the 'Guest Without Taste's' intervention, you were forcibly registered as this mini-game's player, and the difficulty rose."

"Not skyrocketed?"

"You use a learned word. But I judged that, as this system's administrator, I couldn't permit a user to suffer great mental damage playing a game. So…."

He lightly patted his own body.

"I directly synchronized with this empty 'lady' doll and intervened as your guide."

Kwon Do-heon truly did his best to understand the situation.

"So, the General Manager…."

"You may call me by name."

"Mr. Lee Yeon-woo used a cheat and came in as the helper for my mini-game, is what you're saying?"

"Compared to a game, your comprehension improves—exactly right."

Lee Yeon-woo nodded.

"The optimized clear route for this Labyrinth is as follows. We must go around this area and collect four memories related to the 'girl,' the 'Lover of Dawn's' core self."

"That was, earlier—"

"You seem to have recalled it, and yes. This stage was prepared on the basis of the four 'objects of reminiscence' that you and the others once delivered to the 'General Manager.'"

That 'General Manager' had been Lee Yeon-woo himself too, but he didn't reveal that much. In any case, playing good cop, bad cop had meaningfully helped the Human Guests collect Nightmare—that is, escape the hotel faster.

"You need to find the 'lady's' true feelings hidden behind those objects—proof that 'the witch, too, loved the girl.' I'll show you the way to it."

"Why does that…."

"Only by fully proving the lady's heart can the 'Lover of Dawn's' narrative be rewritten."

"What's the reason?"

"Because, in the end, the 'Lover of Dawn' is the story of a girl who was never loved. Put another way, we offer proof of 'proven love' as an Offering to change the 'White Crow' into a new being."

And,

"In that case, there's a high probability we can fully rescue Ms. Seome's self and escape."

"Ah, Seome…! Is she—is my senior here?"

"He isn't 'here.'"

Lee Yeon-woo explained calmly.

"Due to the influence of the 'Guest Without Taste' and the 'hotel,' it's taken the form of a mini-game, but in essence this is, after all, the 'Lover of Dawn's' mindscape world. The place where she keeps her 'eternal love.'"

"……."

Kwon Do-heon opened and closed his mouth, then went on.

"…So, you're saying I search this space, dig up the stories tied to the objects, and at the end of it claim my senior as the reward, and that's how I clear the mini-game? Did I understand that right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"This is a full-on mystery game, isn't it?"

"You may understand it that way, that's fine."

Lee Yeon-woo curved the 'lady's' red eyes softly into a bright smile. A foxlike smile.

"Fortunately, you're gifted with an excellent detective's eye that sees through to the essence of a subject, aren't you. There's no game better suited to you than this."

"How am I supposed to feel when you're more sure of my talent than I am. Right now I don't have one bit of confidence."

"I'll design the routes and the guidance for you."

He led the way.

"Let's start by checking the first clue, the 'silver comb.'"

"This is really driving me crazy…."

And it was right about then.

"Milady…!"

"……!"

BANG!!

The door flew open, and a 'commoner girl' appeared.

"Milady, where did you go…! I've been looking for you!"

Dark, curly chestnut hair, and skin with a healthy glow from pleasant time in the sun. A girl in a maid's uniform faintly dusted with grime, over a firm, sturdy build.

More precisely, it was the largest self of the 'White Crow,' taking the shape of a 'girl.'

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